Contents

Synopsis

Even Mayaka tells Hōtarō how the movie was intriguing, she also tells him about the missing prop, which was the rope. Hōtarō does remember it being mentioned, and makes an excuse that it could have been an unnecessary item. But Mayaka doesn't buy it, since it's a fact that story-writer Hongou wanted the ropes to be part of the story so badly. Hōtarō becomes slightly dismayed by this truth, but Mayaka tries not to make things more complicated by saying that she liked his idea. Even so, she still thinks that all the clues didn't fit his solution. Hōtarō agrees, and Mayaka heads to the Manga Society.

As Hōtarō walks out of the screening room, he wonders why he had forgotten this crucial element, whether if he subconsciously ignored or had changed the questions around to fit his answers. As he walk across the school bridge to the next school building, Hōtarō doesn't notice that someone is calling from behind, as he is in deep thought. When the person who's behind him taps his shoulder, Hōtarō surprisingly looks back, only to see Satoshi. Satoshi wonders what was wrong, but he ignores it and asked what he wanted from him. Satoshi has a question he wants to ask, while Hōtarō takes note that it seems Satoshi doesn't want to talk about this around neither Mayaka or Eru.

Satoshi goes on to asking his question, asking whether or not the solution Hōtarō thought of was supposed to be Hongou's idea, or just Hōtarō's own idea. When Hōtarō answers that it was supposed to be Hongou's idea, Satoshi is disappointed. He knows very that the solution couldn't have been Hongou's intentional idea. Hōtarō worries that there were some inconsistencies he had missed, but Satoshi says that there weren't, since he thinks the ending was true interesting. He then asks Hōtarō what a "narrative trick" is. He answers that it is a story that tricks the reader with the way the story is presented, exactly like the solution Hōtarō had thought of. Yet, Hongou, who had no background in the mystery genre, studied books of Sherlock Holmes only, and none of the Holmes mysteries ever use the narrative trick.

The use of narrative tricks came during the age of Agatha Christie, which was in the 20th century, after the character Holmes was created. Satoshi does not feel that Hongou was someone who read Christie's mysteries. Because he liked the movie ending, Satoshi would have been happy if Hōtarō admitted that the ending was his. But, since Hōtarō claimed it was supposed to be Hongou's idea, Satoshi believes Hōtarō is wrong. Hōtarō attempts to make an excuse that Hongou may have read or watched some kind of mystery based book or movie, but Satoshi ignores this and tells him if he believes this excuse is "right", then he'll just go along with it. though seemingly disappointed, Satoshi takes his leave, since he has said what he wanted to say.